caring, the mere mention of stephen king's titles evokes fear. do people ever say to you when they meet you, you know, i thought maybe i might be scared of you. all the time, right? >> sure. a lot of people think they're going to be scared of me. i'm civilized. >> right here, please. >> reporter: the best-selling author built his career on fritenning people through the written word. he sees things in ways others don't. so years before most authors even thought about e-books king published a novella online. it shocked the industry and got him a lot of attention. >> i got on the cover of "time" magazine and for once in my life, i got noticed in airports by the guys who wear the suits and ties. they'd come up to me and say how did that work, how did that sell? they were fascinated by the business aspect. >> reporter: that was a decade ago. today, the e-book industry is on fire. amazon is selling more e-books than hard covers, making up more than 8% of publishing revenue. up from 3% a year ago. on track to hit 50% by 2015. some studies show when peop